


In The Wake

by LullabyKnell



Series: Star Wars Episode LK [7]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alderaan, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Dead People, Force Ghosts, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, Forgiveness, Gen, Ghosts, Grandmothers, Leia Organa Deserves Better, Revenge, Skywalker Family Feels, Spirits, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-03-03 23:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13351596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell
Summary: Luke's grandmother is dead, but most people don't notice. Even Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have gotten used to the fact that a dead woman lives with them.Luke's grandmother had a gift; Luke's father had a gift; Luke has that gift too.(So does his sister.)





	1. Gran Shmi

**Author's Note:**

> While this is a sequel to the Shmi-centric "Wave in the Wastes," the stories are separate, dealing with different spirits/ghosts, and both stand-alone. You don't have to read the first story in this series to read this one, though the first story may better explain some elements of this new world. 
> 
> This story was inspired by the idea of Skywalkers seeing ghosts, of Luke and Leia interacting (brother-sister bonding!) and dealing with their powers, of revenge for Alderaan, of the Rogue One characters' "hope" living on in new people, and of there being a strong need for more Shmi Skywalker in everything. I really like how Luke got to grow up and have a normal childhood with loving caretakers (Leia's childhood was loving but it was hardly normal), but I also like to imagine poor Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru having to deal with That Force Nonsense.

 Luke loved his grandmother very much. She was gentle and kind and wise and funny. Shmi Skywalker was a wonderful woman; she seemed to have an answer for everything, even if it was to admit that she didn’t know something, but she could make very good guesses and always knew just how to make him feel better.

 She loved him back, too, and was always watching over him.

 Luke remembered very clearly attempting to express this to his Aunt Beru, when he had been very young, only for his aunt to turn to him, looking very confused, before she had said, “Your grandmother would have loved you very much, Luke, but Gran Shmi passed away long before you were born.”

 Luke had been very confused as well, and said insistently, pointing, “But she’s right there!”

 And, for a moment to Beru Whitesun’s eyes, Shmi Skywalker had been.

 Gran Shmi had smiled.

 Aunt Beru had dropped the milk in surprise.

~

 Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru explained a few things after that, but they left Luke with many more questions than answers. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were left with more questions than answers too. They didn’t know much and neither did Luke.

 All Uncle Owen could reluctantly explain was that there was a… gift of sorts… in the Skywalker line. Luke's grandmother had it, Luke’s father had it, and now it seemed that Luke had that power too.

 All Luke could tell his aunt and uncle was that he’d _wanted_ Aunt Beru to see his grandmother, and then it had happened. He couldn’t tell them when he’d first seen Gran Shmi. It felt as though she’d been there, watching over him, smiling, waiting for something, all his life. She was more there now than she’d been before, but… somehow… he’d always known she was there.

 This did not make Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru feel better, even though they both assured Luke that they had loved his grandmother very much and that she had been a wonderful woman.

 Luke isn’t clear on when he decided this, but somewhere around this point, he became sure that Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were nervous because they _couldn’t_ see Gran Shmi. So, everything would be much better and everyone would be happy again if everyone could see Shmi Skywalker all the time, because she was as real as anyone else.

 And from then on, they did.

 ~

 Luke remembered the first time Gran Shmi had picked something up: a model ship that had fallen on the floor. Not because she’d picked it up and returned it to him, because he’d never noticed that she hadn’t picked anything up before.

 What he remembered was how Uncle Owen had dropped his food and it spilled all over Aunt Beru’s favorite chair. Uncle Owen should have gotten in big trouble, because it had stained something awful, but after he’d gone to find Aunt Beru, she hadn’t done more than frown at him. After having been told so many times to be very careful, Luke had thought it very unfair.

~

 “Luke’s father’s sister,” Aunt Beru said shortly to the first people to ask who the new woman was.

 Tatooine’s communities were small places, so soon everyone around knew that Owen Lars’ stepbrother’s sister had come to the Lars farm. She was… an odd woman. Didn’t talk much. Didn’t say much when she did. She kept close to the farm and her family. Which in themselves weren’t odd, but… she was… distant.

 “Looks a lot like her mother,” one of their neighbors said to Aunt Beru.

 “A strong resemblance,” Aunt Beru agreed.

 Memories tended to either be very long or very short around these parts of Tatooine. More than a few remembered how the late Clive Lars, Owen’s father, had brought a slave woman home, freed her, then eventually married her. More than a few had similar histories themselves. Not every mother on Tatooine was allowed to keep her children, so no one questioned the appearance of a long-lost daughter with a mysterious history who was a little odd. It might as well be a miracle.

 They spun the story mostly by themselves, about Owen Lars’ lost stepsister. All Aunt Beru had to do was smile politely and let them spin themselves to a stop about the second Shmi Skywalker.

~

 Luke loved his grandmother very much. As he grew, she always had more to tell him. Her smiles were brighter and her eyes were warmer and her voice was stronger, it seemed, every day. She took his small hand in hers and taught him, warned him, about the worlds beneath and beside their own.

 Gran Shmi taught him about the trickster spirits that played in the sunbeams, dancing around pits and tumbling off their rooftop. They were always good for games when Luke had the time. They loved being caught and shot at, squealing indignantly and joyfully enough to put a womprat to shame.

 Gran Shmi taught him about the massive, wandering spirits that roamed the desert, towers of lost beings that sang strange songs into the wastes. They often kept to their lonely horizons, but sometimes they might drift closer, as though curious, if a young boy tried to sing along to their passing cries. As Luke grew older, he grew better at tricking them, and all his family scolded him for baiting them, but Luke thought many of them enjoyed the attempt at company, and the ones that didn’t could never manage to catch him.

 Gran Shmi finally taught him about ghosts, from the haunted reflections replaying the memories of their lives, to the lingering shades of unfinished company, to the vengeful shadows with regrets and rage at their claws. People that had been people, a long time ago.

 Most of them were weak, distant, half-present, and unaware beings. They went through people and walls, they couldn’t remember new things, or they could only speak a handful of phrases or follow a handful of thoughts. Repetitive… reflective… refugees… most of them. None of them to the exact same degree. None of them were the same.

 None of them were anything like Gran Shmi.

 ~

 Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had told Luke very little of his father. He got the impression that they didn’t much care for Anakin Skywalker. Luke had suspected this from a very early age, from some of Uncle Owen’s grumbling, that it had something to do with Luke’s father leaving, becoming a cargo pilot, and then dying. They didn’t speak of him disrespectfully exactly, because he was family, but it was how much they didn’t speak of him.

 Luke didn’t blame his father for any of those things; if _he_ was given the chance to leave this sandy piece of nowhere behind, he’d take it too. Even a cargo pilot got to see more of the stars than a farm boy stranded on the farthest planet from any sort of bright center of the universe.

 Luckily, there was little Shmi loved to talk about more than her son, especially to her grandson.

 Anakin Skywalker had been born a slave, but he’d been freed, and he’d gone to walk the stars. He’d been a skilled mechanic and a clever mischief-maker and a brilliant pilot. He’d also been furiously good, and kind, and determined. Shmi missed her little boy very much.

 Such stories she told him! All about a young Anakin Skywalker and his adventures.

 Luke imagined that such a brave boy – a boy around his own age – had grown up to help people in the Clone Wars! Anakin – the Anakin that Gran Shmi told him about – wouldn’t have been content to just be a cargo pilot! He would have helped slaves and refugees hide and escape! He would have brought food and water to people in need! He would have snuck things past the bad guys and carried important messages and rebelled!

 He told this to his Gran Shmi one day. He was the same age that his father had been, when Anakin had been freed, and he was absolutely sure of this. Luke would have! His father would have done the same! Luke _knew_ he would have! He knew that Anakin Skywalker would have helped people!

 After all, Gran Shmi had told him such amazing stories about his father helping spirits and ghosts! Luke tried to do the same thing, where he could, while under his family’s sharp eyes. It made him proud to follow in his father’s and grandmother’s footsteps, helping even the slaves and shades. The boy, Ani, who’d helped ghosts find their peace, had surely became a man for the people.

 Luke didn’t know what to do when his grandmother frowned in deep thought. She didn’t do this often. Not for this long and not looking so very confused.

 “Gran?” Luke said hesitantly.

 “I…”

 “Didn’t you ever hear from him again? You must know _something!”_

 Gran Shmi frowned, looking alarmed, panicked, and Luke could almost hear her thinking.

 “He… he went away… to help people,” Gran Shmi said slowly, as though discovering this for herself. “Yes, he… he did. He went with… the man… the tall man to become… to become… a…”

 “Yes?” Luke prompted, eager.

 Gran Shmi looked back at him, and whispered, “I can’t recall.”

 Luke didn’t know what to say to this. Gran Shmi forgot things sometimes, sometimes even really important things, but she had loved her son more than anyone. It seemed impossible that she’d forget the details of her son leaving.

 It occurred to Luke in this moment that he didn’t know exactly how his father was freed.

 “Gran Shmi, how was my father freed?”

 He knew how his grandmother had been freed, how she had later chosen to marry Gran Clive. He even knew that his Gran Shmi had died in a conflict with Sand People, and that it wasn’t something to talk about. He didn’t know how his father had died, or how young Anakin Skywalker had been freed.

 “There was… a tall man,” Gran Shmi said, after a great deal more painful thought and silence. “There was a tall man… and a bet… and… and a race.”

 “A race?”

 Shmi stared off into nothing. “Ani won,” she whispered. “He won.”

 She remembered nothing else that night.

~

 Luke liked flying, he liked racing, and nobody asked any questions when Luke started asking more questions about racing history. Specifically: podracing, as Gran Shmi had mentioned a few times before. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru might not care much for flying or gambling, but Luke had friends and those friends had caretakers and friends of their own.

 Memories tended to be very long or very short around most places on Tatooine, depending on who you were and what you were asking after. Some few people still remembered the Boonta Eve Classic of 32 BBY, the first big podrace in memory where a human – a ten-year-old slave boy – won. Anakin Skywalker, yes, that had been his name – all the way in Mos Espa they still remembered Anakin Skywalker, the podracer boy, if vaguely nowadays.

 Luke asked his Gran Shmi if this was the race that Anakin had won to be freed. Gran Shmi stared at him for a long moment, before she smiled, with such delight that Luke didn’t know if he’d ever seen before.

 “He built it himself,” she said. “He built the pod himself. It took him so long.”

 Luke smiled back and settled in to hear about Anakin Skywalker and the Boonta Eve Classic. About how Anakin had done it to help people, about how Wattu (a name that had appeared in many a story before) hadn’t wanted to take the bet, about how Shmi hadn’t wanted to let Anakin do something so dangerous but she’d wanted him free just as dearly, about Selbulba the cheater and Ani the winner. It feels like the culmination of every story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke is on the edge of his seat as the exciting details return to his Gran Shmi.

 The people he’d helped freed Anakin and taken him on as… as… an apprentice, Gran Shmi remembered. They hadn’t had enough to take Gran Shmi with them too, but she’d felt Anakin had been far more important. She wouldn’t take such an amazing chance from him. She had let the tall man take him away to the stars.

 This wasn’t the ending that Luke had hoped for. He’d known it was the end, because he knew the shape of Gran Shmi’s story from there, but still he’d hoped for something better than separation, of never seeing each other again. Luke was now older than his father had been, and he couldn’t imagine leaving Gran Shmi and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru behind forever.

 Yes, he wanted to go to the stars. He’d choose to go be a cargo pilot too, and help people too, and leave this dusty old rock far, far behind. But forever? It was more than a little daunting, the prospect of leaving _forever._ Of not seeing his family again _forever._

 “Didn’t he ever visit? Didn’t he ever send a message?” Luke asked.

 Gran Shmi thought very deeply. “Once,” she said. “I think he came back once, all grown. I can’t recall.”

 “How can you forget if he came back?” Luke demanded, not for the first time deeply frustrated with his Gran Shmi’s limited memories. Of all the people to forget things about! She was supposed to know everything! How was there always so much beyond them both?

 “I… I don’t know,” Gran Shmi said.   

~

 Luke confronted his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru about this. Uncle Owen had told him that his father had left Tatooine and never said anything about Anakin Skywalker returning even _once._ He knew his Gran Shmi had been telling the truth when Aunt Beru gave Uncle Owen one of her looks.

 “He was always going to find out eventually, Owen,” she said firmly. “He has too much Skywalker in him. He deserves to know.”

 Uncle Owen sighed, heavily, and relayed, briefly, the true story of Shmi Skywalker’s death – one of the many things they didn’t talk about in this house. Not in detail.

 Gran Shmi had been taken by Sand People and they had nearly given up on finding her when Anakin Skywalker returned to Tatooine for the first time in ten years, accompanied by an offworlder woman. Anakin had heard his mother was in danger, and upon arrival had immediately set out to find her. Gran Clive, Uncle Owen, and Aunt Beru (before she had been his aunt) had been left alone with the woman that Anakin had been travelling with, possible escorting somewhere.

 Later, Anakin returned dusted in smoke and grief, with his mother’s body. Gran Clive never had the chance to ask what exactly happened, because Anakin and the woman left nearly immediately. Before they knew it, the Clone Wars broke out, and Anakin Skywalker was never seen again by the Lars farm.

 The only one Anakin Skywalker had known was Gran Shmi, and Gran Shmi was the only one who had known Anakin Skywalker. Uncle Owen was never given the chance to know his stepbrother.

 “But why didn’t Gran Shmi remember that?” Luke asked quietly.

 Aunt Beru came around and put her arms around him. “It was a terrible thing, Luke, and a bad memory for everyone, losing your Gran Shmi. Sometimes we forget painful things because it hurts too much to remember them,” she said kindly. Then, hesitantly, added, “Be gentle with your Gran Shmi. She’s… different… but she’s still a ghost, Luke.”

 Luke nodded, and sniffled, running his arm over his face. He leaned into his Aunt Beru, let Uncle Owen put a hand on his shoulder, and remembered that his grandmother, who he loved very much, was dead.

~

 “Aunt Beru, who was the woman with my father?”

 Luke and Aunt Beru were doing the mending again, while Uncle Owen, whose eyes were having more and more trouble with small details, was making supper. Gran Shmi, who was the best mechanic of all of them, was busy fixing one of the outer fences after some trickster spirits had taunted a canyon beast roaming far from its usual prowl.

 Luke had come to accept that there were gaps in the things Gran Shmi knew, and things that Gran Shmi didn’t want to remember, like how she’d died or how she’d been left behind while her son was freed. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman his father had been travelling with.

 Aunt Beru looked at him. “I don’t know, Luke. I didn’t know her long.”

 “You must know something about her,” Luke insisted. “What was her name?”

 Aunt Beru frowned and thought back, pausing in her mending. “She called herself Padmé,” she said finally, certainly. “No other name. She was a short woman, slight, with pale skin and soft hands. She spoke like she knew she was important, with an Inner-Rim accent, and her clothes could have cost more than anything on the farm. But she was polite, and kindly, and she said she grieved with us.”

 “Who was she?”

 “I don’t know, Luke. We never saw her again.”

~

 It took meeting more spirits and ghosts, more years passing, Luke growing older and wiser into more of a young man than a boy, for Luke to realize, slowly, that other ghosts actually _were_ like his Gran Shmi, or rather, that Gran Shmi was like _them_. To remember that Gran Shmi hadn’t always been the way she was now, as different as she was now. That Gran Shmi hadn’t always been just another member of the family, a little odd, but as real as him or Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru.

 Even Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru seemed to forget sometimes, until they startled when Shmi drifted through a piece of furniture again or a wall. She did that far less than she used to. She was more solid than she used to be. Sometimes it seemed like she too had forgotten she could be anything else.

 Luke hadn’t realized because as he had grown, so, it seemed, had his Gran Shmi. She remembered more now. Not just about her own past, but about new things and happenings. Gran Shmi was more… present… than lost in the past. She felt easier, reacted faster, talked longer – she learned, she thought, she grew – until it was very easy to forget that Luke’s beloved grandmother was a dead woman.

 But she didn’t age. She didn’t always remember. And she didn’t always feel… real.

 Luke loved her anyway, but now he began to remember too.

~

 Sometimes Gran Shmi forgot that Luke’s father had been a pilot on a space freighter, or even that he was dead. No matter how many times they told her, Gran Shmi inevitably forgot her beloved son was dead. She’d speak of him as though he were still out there somewhere, look out to the horizon like she would find him there, and she looked so sad when they reminded her of the truth. Sometimes, she'd even get  _upset._

 Even though he knew better, Luke often put off telling her the truth. It seemed kinder.  

~

 “Gran Shmi,” Luke said. “Did you ever meet a woman named Padmé?”

 “I met… I met a young girl named Padmé, once,” Gran Shmi answered, after another moment of thought. “Only fourteen.” As she spoke, Gran Shmi became more confident. “She came with the tall man who took my Ani away; she needed help.”

 “What was she like?”

 Luke listened in growing excitement and delight as Gran Shmi described a girl very like the woman who Aunt Beru had described. Then in wonder as Gran Shmi laughingly recounted how Anakin had thought the girl was an angel from space, one of those beautiful alien spirits that occasionally touched down on Tatooine’s sands before taking off again, because she was so different, so soft and pretty.

 Ten years apart. The boy named Ani had left with this girl, and then returned a decade later still with her by his side. Luke wondered with dreadful excitement. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had never told him anything about his other parent, they didn’t know a thing about them. Luke had clung to the closer stories of his father and considered another parent to be an impossible secret, lost along the same way of his father’s death, that had left to a newborn, orphaned Luke to be delivered to the Lars farm.

 “Gran Shmi, do you think she could have been my mother?” Luke asked.

 “I don’t know, Luke.”

 ~

 Gran Shmi, Aunt Beru, and Uncle Owen all gave the same answers. They didn’t know, the unknown girl-turned-woman called Padmé might have been his mother, but they couldn’t say for sure. They had barely known her. There was no way to know for sure.

 But Luke _knew._ The name felt right in his mouth, in his dreams, in his heart. He couldn’t say why, but he knew it the same way he knew the songs of wanderers on the horizon were lost and lonely, the same way he knew the lingering shades cried for vengeance or forgiveness or freedom, and the same way he felt wild seas and lush green and sky-scraping noises, and a thousand other wonders he’d never seen, drifting behind passing alien spirits.

 Luke knew a great many things that a young man should have no way of _knowing._

 So, Luke climbed the stairs and exited his house, and watched the suns set over the Dune Sea. He told them the wonder that he knew; he told the wind and the clouds and the sands, and the deserts as a whole. He told himself, and listened to see if it sounded like the truth.

 “Anakin and Padmé,” he said. “I’ll find you someday.”

 Even if only their ghosts.

 


	2. The Messenger

 Luke loved his family very much, but he was nineteen now, and for all Tatooine was a vast and deep place, it felt stiflingly small at times. There wasn’t much future here for a young man who dreamed of adventure and Rebellions – who dreamed of stars and the vast, deep, amazing everything that might lie beyond them. There were times he thought he could scream, trapped on a sandy waste with only his elderly guardians and a ghost for company.

 He felt like one of those shades stuck repeating the same dull life until they faded away. Watching everyone around him move on and away to the flight and the fight. All while he knew there was so much out there; he could feel it. It was torture.

 Uncle Owen was always saying _next year, maybe next year._ Aunt Beru and Gran Shmi were always telling him to be patient, _to be patient,_ that all things came in time. Like Luke wasn’t surrounded by ghosts and spirits that had been born and had died on Tatooine, the farthest planet from any sort of bright center of the universe.

 Then came the droids.

~

 No one on the farm liked dealing with the Jawas, who carried pest and carrion spirits and the echoes of droids behind their trawling ships, and who sometimes seemed to be little spirits themselves. Uncle Owen was cheap and resources were limited, and there weren’t exactly nicer options anywhere around.  But while Aunt Beru held her tongue and turned her cheek, and Uncle Owen gruffly trudged up, Gran Shmi wouldn’t even come out of the house for them.

 The Jawas reminded her of things she didn’t like to think about, though none of them knew exactly what, whether it was her death or her past. None of them pushed her about it, though Uncle Owen grumbled because Gran Shmi was the best mechanic for miles around.

 This left Luke, who’d learned as much as he could at his Gran Shmi’s knee, to help Uncle Owen pick out the droids they needed. Well, they really only needed one droid, a translator, but it seemed the other one came with the first one. Another worker around the farm rarely hurt, even if that worker be a droid or a ghost. Uncle Owen grumbled some more, but he paid for the translator and the astromech both.

 And immediately dumped them on Luke. Luke objected to being saddled with fixing them up – he’d had plans to _do something,_ something more _exciting_ than work and chores, something with his friends – but Uncle Owen wasn’t having any of it. He rarely did. Uncle Owen told him firmly not to dump them on Gran Shmi, who had more important somethings to do around the farm, and sent him off.

 Everybody had to pitch in around the Lars farm. That was how it was and always had been, and Luke would be able to sulk better if he understood why less. It was so unfair! He was never going to get out of here at this rate! But complaining about it wouldn’t get the droids cleaned up, so Luke grudgingly herded them inside and got to work.

 ~

 The droids were nice enough. They were a funny pair. They sure had personality and, though Luke was mostly angry at his uncle for always keeping him stuck at home, they seemed like they’d at least make home a bit more interesting. Not that that was hard.

 At some point, while getting the anxious, golden translator droid cleaned up, Luke accidentally laid a hand on the head of the feisty, little astromech. The sudden _bang_ of an explosion directly in his ear caught him off guard. He yelped and tripped over his own feet.

 The rumble echoed through the room as he stared up at the ceiling, his heart pounding, ears ringing. And then it went off again, the bright flash and rumble of the room shaking, and suddenly there were sirens wailing. Someone was leaning over him and yelling in his face.

 Between the sirens and the ringing, Luke could barely hear them.

 “HURRY!” the man in the wide, white helmet yelled down at him. “Let’s go now!”

 Then he ran off, and Luke immediately sat up and stared after him with wide eyes. The man looked like some sort of soldier, in his blue and black uniform and strange helmet. He was also clearly a ghost, and clearly an offworlder, and, by the desperation and strength of him, only very recently dead.

 The sirens wailed and the lights dimmed and flashed. The room shook and something rumbled in the distance like a storm bearing down. Smoke poured out from nowhere. The dead soldier sprinted across the room, and a dozen other boots belonging to vague shapes ran with him. The shapes, slowly gaining the form of other soldiers shouted around him, echoing “ _hurry!”_ and “ _let’s go!”_ as the lights kept flashing and bursting and the room slowly went dark.

 It was a display like nothing Luke had ever seen before, among ghosts or spirits, and he hurried to his feet and gaped as the soldier jabbed at something and began pulling with all his desperation and strength at an invisible door. The soldier banged his fists and shouted at someone who couldn’t be seen.

 “HEY! HELP!” The banging shook the room. “HELP!”

 “Hey!” Luke cried. “Stop!”

 The soldier did, and the shapes-becoming-shades around him stopped moving. The room was dark now, the only light was that framing the previously unseen door, from its dim window and an open crack that hadn’t budged an inch. The sirens wailed through the darkness, the only sound in this alien place, and something like a cold touch brushed down Luke’s spine and scratched over the skin of his arms.

 The soldier and his fellows turned, and stared with wide eyes, and then they slowly assumed firing stances.

 A long, heavy creak groaned the shape of a long, dark hall. 

 Luke didn’t breathe, but a long, mechanical inhale seemed to sound from all around him, and he knew that his shout hadn’t been why they’d stopped. Why everything had suddenly seemed to stop in the dark. A quicker, mechanical exhale cut off the inhale. Then the sound repeated. The breath of the very dark around them, it felt, especially since Luke saw nothing but darkness when he dared turn around.

 A hiss, and suddenly red light flooded the long hall of the ship. It didn’t seem to have a source; it was just suddenly there in a bright line in front of him. Cutting everything into shadow and reflected red.

 And suddenly there was a towering shadow, a shadow in the truest sense of the word: a complete absence of light. Only a living one, an unnatural, moving space that even the terrible red light didn’t dare touch. It loomed over Luke, and the red around it, and overwhelming fear around that. The shadow breathed that unnatural sound, and the red light hummed harsh and bright, and a distant, desperate cry came from behind him:

 “OPEN FIRE!”

 The blaster fire was immediate. The first, red bolt went directly through Luke’s back, through his heart, and out his chest again. It felt like terror, and suddenly the source of the red light, that line of light so bright that its inside was white, flashed up and brushed the bolt effortlessly aside in a blinding flash of sparks.

 The terrible shadow wielding the red light only thickened, like clouds framed by lightning.

 The harsh discharge of blaster fire rained down, jolting through Luke, and Luke flung himself aside. He gaped, as the shadow advanced, unbothered, unafraid. The bolts were swallowed in flashes of light, or were cast aside, or were thrown back and struck down the nearest soldiers. Though they were only shades, weak ghosts, little more than shapes, Luke heard their pained cries and the _thumps_ of their falls and saw the silhouettes of their bodies as the shadow marched forward.

 The terrible breathing sound filled the room, even over the blaster fire. It couldn’t not be heard. The darkness seethed with it. 

 The first soldier, still by the door, turned around, and banged on the window again and screamed.

 “HELP US!”

 But the shadow advanced, and the hand reached out. It touched nothing, but one the soldiers clutched at his throat and his legs kicked and he was plastered to the ceiling by an invisibly weight. The terrible red light deflected another bolt and sliced up, and burned through the screaming man like a blade. He fell to the floor in sparks and pieces.

 The reaching hand deflected another bolt, and then the red light cut through the soldiers like they were nothing. Less than nothing. They screamed and fell and the shadow advanced.

 Luke stood and bolted forward. There were only two soldiers left.

 “No!” he cried and flung himself at the shadow with all the lessons about spirits he had ever learned, ignoring every warning he had ever been given at his Gran Shmi’s knee.

 There was a gift in his family, a strange and frightening power. His grandmother had it, his father had once had it, and now Luke had that power too. Luke rarely used his powers to fight, and even less to exert any kind of control on ghosts or spirits, who might not have been alive in the usual sense but were the next best thing. But he could never stand by and watch them suffer needlessly. Whatever was happening, he couldn’t let it happen to its end.

 The terrible shadow reached out towards the second-to-last soldier and Luke reached forward to grab at it, to pull it off, to shove it away.

 But Luke’s hands went _through_ the shadow, like they never had before when he had meant to touch a ghost or spirit. The shadow’s outstretched hand tightened and the shade of a soldier clutched at the invisible force which lifted him, and then slammed him into the wall hard enough to crack it.

 Luke looked forward, aghast, at the last soldier, the first ghost. He was the most solid of them, the loudest and clearest, and the shadow still was only vague form and no features. The soldier’s eyes were wide with fear and bright with the reflected red light.

 The soldier shoved his arm through the light of the door. “TAKE IT!” he screamed to an unknown shape through the dim window, as the shadow advanced. _“TAKE IT!”_

 And Luke realized that despite his solidity, despite his vividness, the soldier was somehow more shade than ghost. More memory than consciousness. This intense reality was a memory too. And the shadow wasn’t a ghost or spirit at all, but just another part of the dead soldier’s terrible vision.

 “Stop it!” Luke cried to the soldier, and reached out again. “Stop remembering! This isn’t real!”

 But the soldier’s arm came out from the door again, the shade behind it vanished, and the red light in the shadow’s hand was thrust forward through the dead man’s heart. It went through his back, through his chest, and through the door. The air burned and sparks flew through the dark as the shadow effortlessly cracked the door open, and Luke couldn’t breathe for the pain and horror of it all.

 Light flooded the hall for only a moment, and then the shadow stood stark against it as it stepped over the dead soldier and swept through the door. Blaster fire. Sparks. The ship rattled and the lights flashed. Shapes screamed and fell as the red light burned and sliced through the thinning, darkening air.

  _“LAUNCH!”_ a distant voice screamed through the fading world.

~

 Luke saw no more. The memory went dark, surely as the first and last soldier died. When the darkness lifted, where the door and terrible shadow had been, was the little blue and gray astromech. The droid was looking at him, its head twisting back and forth in confusion, maybe surprise, maybe panic.

 It gave a shrill, upset, and very demanding whistle.

 ~

 “Oh, goodness!” cried the golden droid. “What in the world was that?!”

 Luke startled and looked between them, bewildered, breathing heavily. “You saw that too?”

 “Of course! My visual sensors are in perfect working order! If they weren’t malfunctioning, I don’t understand what that possibly could have been! Do you perhaps have some sort of holographic entertainment system that has malfunctioned?”

 “No,” Luke said, and dropped down into the nearest chair. “No, _nothing_ like that!”

 No one that Luke knew could afford anything like that, and he’d never seen any sort of virtual reality system that detailed. That had been a ghost. A ghost and the terrible memory of how he had died. Luke had felt it. He just didn’t understand how it and the memory the dead soldier carried had been so _strong,_ so vivid, and how the man himself had been without any awareness.

 The astromech beeped indignantly.

 “Artoo!” the golden droid gasped from the oil bath. “You can’t speak to our new master like that!”

 Luke lifted his head, which felt like it was suffering pins and needles. “What did he say?”

 “Nothing that need concern you, Master Luke, I assure you! My name is ‘See-Threepio’, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, ‘Artoo-Detoo’, and we’re very pleased to be at your service.” The droid, C-3PO, said as they were lifted from the oil bath.

 Luke eyed the carbon scoring on the little astromech with new suspicion. “How did you come to be here, on Tatooine?” he asked, and grabbed one of his model ships to fiddle with. He used it to gesture between the droids. “You’re not from here.”

 “Oh, certainly not! It’s a long story, sir, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like to be bored by-”

 “I’d like to know. It looks like you’ve seen a lot of action.”

 “Well, quite a lot, if I do say so myself,” C-3PO said affably, then leaned in slightly and said as though relating a great secret, “With all we’ve been through, sometimes I’m amazed we’re in as good condition as we are! What with the Rebellion and all.”

 “I knew it!” Luke said. “What happened? Are you part of it? Was it a battle?”

 “Not anymore, of course! And yes, it was, a terrible one that I’m glad to be out of!”

 The astromech, R2-D2, made a series of beeps.

 “Yes, Artoo,” C-3PO said, and turned to the other droid. “I suppose they did look like the guards on Captain Antilles’ and Her Highness’ ship, but we can’t know that was what happened above Scarif! Was it you who did that? I can’t believe it!”

 R2-D2 was the only droid Luke had ever met who could make a beep sound so derisive.

 “Well, it hardly could have been me or Master Luke!”

 “Her Highness?” Luke repeated. “Who are you talking about?”

 C-3PO whirled about and waved his hands hurried. “No one of any importance, sir! Well, a person of great importance, really, but-”

 Luke stood and placed the model ship on the table again, and wandered cautiously towards the little astromech. R2-D2’s head spun back and forth, and the droid even backed up slightly. C-3PO fluttered anxiously beside them.

 “It’s a long story, although there’s actually not much to tell. I’m not much more than interpreter, and not very good at telling stories,” C-3PO insisted. “Well, not at making them interesting, anyways. It’s best if we just forget the whole thing, really. It’s all the in past now, and it wouldn’t be interesting even I wasn’t the one telling it, and we really should just move on-”

 “You’ve got something don’t you?” Luke asked the astromech. It had _something,_ he knew it.

 R2-D2 beeped defensively.

 “He doesn’t!” C-3PO translated. “Nothing at all. We’re just carrying ourselves, sir.”

 Luke peered at R2-D2’s neck joint, where something seemed to be interfering with the turn of its head. He reached over and grabbed a pick from his Gran Shmi’s tools, and slowly reached forward. He was hesitant to touch the droid again, but he hoped the pick would prevent anything from happening again, and he crouched down to poke at it.

 R2-D2 beeped at him and C-3PO gasped again, but Luke ignored them both and picked at what seemed to be a small metal fragment. He didn’t know what the droid had, but it sure was _something_ and he was going to find out. Unfortunately, it was jammed in there real good and Luke had to press his hand against the droid’s head again. There was no vision, but R2-D2 head swiveled at just the wrong moment and the fragment snapped loose and to pieces.

  _“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,”_ a hologram of a young woman said. _“You’re my only hope.”_

 Luke stared, wide-eyed, from where he’d fallen on the floor.

 “Oh, dear,” C-3PO said, with a very loud gasp and great distress, as the fragment hologram repeated itself again and again. “It’s happening again! I don’t know what that is!”

 Luke put a hand on the astromech to pull himself up again, enchanted by the hologram. There was _something_ about it. The girl was very pretty. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Except he could, and he did, because he yelped and pulled away from the astromech feeling like he’d been burned. Except he hadn’t been burned, and his hand was left ringing with a feeling like the vision, only inside-out.

 “It’s hope,” he said, and then stared in confusion towards the hologram.

 He didn’t know why he’d said that, or why he thought he knew it.

 “Who is she?” Luke demanded of the droids.

 “I’m afraid I’m not quite sure, sir.”

  _“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi-”_

 “Is there more to this recording?” Luke reached for the astromech again, but R2-D2 backed up and gave a whistle that sounded like a warning. Luke frowned at the little droid.

 “Behave yourself, Artoo! You’re going to get us in trouble! It’s all right, you can trust him. He’s our new master-” C-3PO paused as their partner whistled back, then translated disbelievingly, “He says he’s the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a resident of these parts. And it’s a private message for him.”

 Luke stared and thought this over. “Obi-Wan?”

 “Quite frankly, sir, I don’t know _what_ he’s talking about. Our last master was Captain Antilles, but with what we’ve been though, this little R2 unit _has_ become a bit eccentric-”

 “Like old Ben Kenobi?”

 C-3PO paused. “I beg your pardon, sir, but do you know what he’s talking about?”

 Luke related that old Ben was a strange hermit who lived out beyond the Dune Sea, but neither of the droids seemed to have heard of him. Which was fair, because most people hadn’t heard of Ben Kenobi, save the local community who, when he appeared, thought of him as a harmless annoyance at best.

 Luke had always been half-convinced that the old man was some type or spirit, or at the very least saw them too, but occasionally he subscribed to Uncle Owen’s idea that the man was just a bit mad. Fair enough, Luke had always thought, being of the opinion that being stuck on Tatooine that long would make anyone a bit mad. And Ben Kenobi was _ancient._

 The hologram distracted Luke before he could really think about it. Again, it felt like he couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. There was just something about her. He didn’t know what; he’d never felt anything like this before. He stared longingly. Was it because she was beautiful? It must have been.

 Later, Luke would realize the astromech had tricked him into taking the restraining bolt off by claiming that it had short-circuited his recording system. That sneaky little droid. Luke’s only defense for not realizing this was that he had been so dismayed by the immediate disappearance of the hologram and Aunt Beru had been calling him to dinner. He tossed the restraining bolt onto a work bench and went.

 Maybe Gran Shmi would be able to make sense of everything.

 ~

 It wasn’t much of a surprise that the droids they’d just bought from the Jawas had been stolen by the Jawas instead of sold to them. Frankly, it would have been more of a surprise if the droids hadn’t been. Jawas were junk traders and scavengers, and these two were a bit too different. But it was a good lead-in for Luke to start asking questions.

 He noticed how Uncle Owen paused at the mention of “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and kept going to try and figure out if this was more than his uncle’s general dislike of old Ben and anything strange that wandered the desert. Luke also noticed how his Gran Shmi frowned, like she was thinking, like she might have heard the name before.

 Uncle Owen dismissed everything immediately and ordered Luke to flush the droid’s memory tomorrow. But then he let slip that Obi-Wan Kenobi, whoever he was, had died about the same time as Luke’s father.

 “He knew my father?” Luke demanded.

 He looked around the table, confused and accusing, because he’d weaseled out every single story he could and he’d _never_ heard this name before.

 “I told you to forget it,” Uncle Owen said firmly, and glanced towards Gran Shmi.

 Luke frowned, and decided to ask Gran Shmi about everything, and maybe Aunt Beru later. He went along with Uncle Owen’s orders concerning the droids, and, seeing an opportunity to bring up their agreement again, did so. He wasn’t ever going to leave Tatooine if he stopped trying.

 It didn’t go well. _Only one more season,_ Uncle Owen said again, like he meant it this time, when he never did.

 Aunt Beru looked sympathetic, but she didn’t want him to go either.

 Gran Shmi, however, was still frowning. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure you can already guess [what that vision was, but here it is anyway.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxL8bVJhXCM) I was dying in the theaters. (Really not making yourself look good for the kid there, Dad.) 
> 
> And Luke also gets his first brush with powers so very like his own. ;)


	3. Old Friends

 Luke went out to watch the suns set.

 He thought about the droids, and the vision of a dead man’s memory. It had something to do with the Rebellion against the Empire, he knew it, and those droids had something to do with all of it. The screaming soldiers, the arm through the door, the terrible shadow. All of it.

 And the girl in the hologram! Luke’s hand was still ringing, and he could still see he when he closed his eyes. Who was she? He knew if he asked the desert, it wouldn’t know. She was far away, he knew, though he couldn’t say how he knew. She had looked and sounded like an offworlder, strange and bringing stranger feelings. Like some sort of angel from space.

 He had to get off this planet. It wasn’t fair. There was so much out there. There was so much he could do if he wasn’t stuck on a dust ball as far as possible from everything, left behind by all his friends and every wandering spirit that passed him by.

 Luke turned as he heard Gran Shmi’s soft footsteps coming up behind him.

 “Have you heard of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gran?”

 “I think I might have,” Gran Shmi said, with a reassuring smile. She came to stand next to him. “Though I can’t place the name. Who’s this Ben Kenobi you and Wen were talking about?”

 Luke looked at her disbelievingly. “You haven’t heard of him?”

 “No. I take it that’s strange?”

 There were many strange things about Luke’s grandmother, especially without context. To outsiders, as Owen and Beru Lars had slowly turned grey and wrinkled, the second Shmi Skywalker, when one considered it, despite already being wrinkled and slightly grey around the edges, hadn’t seemed to age a day. But to Luke, what was truly strange was that she somehow hadn’t heard about old Ben.

 Luke proceeded to tell his grandmother all about the strange old man who lived all alone in the desert, and appeared and acted much like a spirit. The main thing that convinced Luke that the man wasn’t a actually a spirit or extremely strange ghost was that other people could see him. They reported him doing and saying odd things, and occasionally blamed him for mishaps and missing things around the homestead. Except Uncle Owen, who never brought the man up first, and sometimes seemed like he would rather run the man off with a stick than even admit he existed.

 Gran Shmi raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Maybe that’s why I haven’t heard of him.”

 Well, it was true that Gran Shmi didn’t get out much, and Uncle Owen was stubborn. Luke supposed it was possible she’d never heard of him, or had forgotten a silly “old Ben story” that Luke had probably recounted to her at least once. Gran Shmi could be forgetful about things like that.

 “Gran,” Luke began slowly. “When I was cleaning up the new droids, something… happened. I saw something… a memory, but it was more like a vision. I’d never seen anything like it.”

 Luke tried to explain the terrible scene, but words couldn’t convey how terrible and strange it was. And he didn’t want to upset his grandmother, who didn’t like violence at all, so his explanation omitted most of it. By Gran Shmi’s expression, his awkwardly chosen words weren’t enough to make her understand.

 “I’ve never experienced anything like that,” Gran Shmi said, looking worried.

 Luke wrapped his arms around his chest, where his hand was still ringing and he could still feel the blaster shot through him like a bruise. “It was probably nothing. It’ll probably go away when I take the droids to Anchorhead tomorrow to get their memories flushed.”

 Gran Shmi didn’t look convinced. “Hopefully,” she said. “Everyone carries memories with them, some worse than others. Be careful about looking too deeply into this one, Luke.”

 “I will, Gran,” Luke promised.

 Gran Shmi put a warm arm around his waist, and Luke put his arm around her shoulders. Together, they watched Tatooine turn away until the suns sank on the horizon. Straggling sunbeam spirits ducked away, clicking at each other, spooking at the long shadows being cast. The trickster beings that were always hanging about were nipping at the heels of one of them, and getting hissed at for their mischief. Shades of droids lingered in the heavy tracks left by the Jawa’s land ship.

 And a wandering tower of a spirit walked out in the distant, singing for an answer, and Luke resisted the urge to call back. Too worn to try and play with spirits now, especially dangerous ones, he held his grandmother and watched the sky turn from rich purple to a dark blue until it was time to head back inside.

 ~

 It served Luke right that he discovered the R2 unit missing when he went back to the garage to grab a few things. C-3PO dithered and complained, but all Luke could hear was how his Uncle Owen was really going to yell at him for this one. He’d be lucky if Uncle Owen let him off the homestead next season, much less the planet!

 “You know that little droid is going to cause me a lot of trouble,” Luke grumbled.

 “Oh, he excels at that, sir.”

 The only thing to do was go get the darn thing, but Luke couldn’t go out wandering at night. If the Sandpeople or the animals didn’t get them, then the spirits and beasts probably would. So, the only thing to do was go get the darn thing in the morning, and hope to hell no one noticed.

 Between thinking about the vision and the droids, Luke got little sleep that night, but anxiety had him up early anyway. He told his Aunt Beru that he had “things to do” before he started his chores today, shoved C-3PO in the Landspeeder, and took off into the desert, in the direction he thought was his best chance to find old Ben Kenobi. With any luck, he’d be able to take the droids to Anchorhead and be back without anyone knowing he’d lost the R2 unit at all.

  In any case, he could also blame C-3PO, as the droid suggested. Uncle Owen needed C-3PO, even if it really had been Luke’s fault for taking the restraining bolt off in hopes of seeing more of that hologram.

 In some ways, it served Luke right that, though he found the droid, he was later knocked unconscious by a Tusken Raider.

 Everyone had always said his curiosity landed him in trouble.

~

Luke came awake to the sight of his Gran Shmi hovering over him with concern. She looked pale and terrified, holding a rifle in one hand and her staff in the other. She was terrified of Sandpeople, and Luke, even half-conscious, immediately felt badly, knowing what must have happened.

 “’Ran Shmi?”

 “Luke! Oh, you worried me so much,” she said, and embraced him. “Never do that again!”

 “How did you know I was in trouble?” Luke groaned, even though it had been proven time and time again that Gran Shmi had an uncanny knack for bad feelings about things. For knowing when Luke was up to no good or in trouble.

 She helped him sit up and he saw the Skyhopper behind her, and the droids, and…

 “Ben? Ben Kenobi?”

 “Rest easy, son, you’ve had a busy day,” the old man said. “You’re fortunate you’re still in one piece. You might not be if your aunt hadn’t come looking for you.”

 Right, his aunt.

 Gran Shmi frowned at old Ben, though she clearly agreed with him. She helped Luke to his feet, her grip white-knuckled on her rifle, and stood slightly between Luke and the old man in the brown cloak.

 “What do you want?” she demanded.

 “Namely to know what’s brought young Luke out this far. The wastes are not to be travelled lightly.”

 Gran Shmi slowly turned on Luke, with an expression saying quite clearly she’d like to know that too. This wasn’t at all the direction to Anchorhead, or any other settlement, and they both knew it.

 Luke grimaced and gestured helplessly at R2. “This little droid. I think he’s searching for his former master… I’ve never seen…” Such terrible, vivid visions. “…such devotion in a droid before. There seems to be no stopping him.”

 “Not if _someone_ took the restraining bolt off him,” Gran Shmi said mildly.

 Luke winced, and knew there was no getting out of this now. He looked to old Ben, hoping at least to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding these droids.

 “He claims to be the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he’s talking about?”

 ~

 Luke was surprised, to say the least, when old Ben admitted to _being_ Obi-Wan Kenobi. Honestly, he couldn’t imagine an offworlder girl begging the help of a desert hermit who was frequently accused of stealing laundry from the lines. Gran Shmi was smiling politely, but it was the polite smile that said she thought he was probably lying.

 After all, Uncle Owen had seemed quite certain the man was dead. And old Ben next admitted that he couldn’t seem to remember ever owning a droid. It was probably a mistake on several parts, but it didn’t feel like one, and Luke didn’t know what to do.

 The threat of the Sandpeople returning in greater numbers was what really convinced them to go with old Ben. Gran Shmi’s face grayed at just the thought. So, Luke helped the droids, who were quickly dusty and, in C-3PO’s case, had taken a nasty fall and damaged an arm, get back in the Landspeeder. The distant wail of a Tusken Raider convinced Luke to push his Gran Shmi in the ‘speeder as well, which was a lot steadier, and old Ben clambered up with them. 

 Luke took the Skyhopper and followed them to old Ben’s place, and tried to figure out who was lying to him. Did this mean that old Ben had known his father? How? Was that why Uncle Owen didn’t like him?

 He needed to get his Gran Shmi home again. She’d looked upset.

 Luke tried to tell himself she’d be fine, but she only looked more upset when they got to old Ben’s place. She shied away from Ben, subtly, and kept giving the droids odd looks. C-3PO especially, for some reason. She frowned at them like she thought she knew them. Even when old Ben went into the house, Gran Shmi kept frowning at the golden droid.

 “See-Threepio?” she said finally, like she was testing each syllable.

 The droid finished clambering out of the ‘speeder and turned to her. “Yes, madam? Have we been introduced yet? I’m indeed ‘See-Threepio’, human-cyborg relations. It’s a pleasure to meet-”

 Gran Shmi’s hands went over her mouth.

 “Gr- Aunt Shmi? What’s the matter?” Luke hurried over, rarely having seen his grandmother look so shocked. He looked at C-3PO and tried to figure out what about the fussy droid had put that wide-eyed look on her face and the trembling through her hands.

 “My Ani built you,” Gran Shmi whispered.

 “What?” Luke said.

 “Madam, I beg your pardon.”

 R2-D2 beeped and whistled quizzically.

 Gran Shmi reached out a hand and laid in on one of C-3PO’s joints, where the golden plates revealed wires. She looked gray, under her tan, and her expression only became more certain, while C-3PO sputtered confusedly.

 “My Ani built you,” she said, more firmly. “He _rebuilt_ you, out of spare parts, to help me around the house. You came with me to the farm. How did you get _here?”_

 “Wait, _this_ is your old droid?” Luke yelped.

 He’d heard _tons_ of stories about his Gran Shmi’s old etiquette droid, built for her by her son, even from his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. When he was younger, Gran Shmi had kept on asking where her droid had gone. She’d told such funny stories about it, about her Ani’s mishaps while building it, about the droid’s mishaps around the farm, and had missed it fondly when she remembered it. She’d said having it as a companion had made her feel important, like a proper, offworlder lady.

 Uncle Owen had said that… someone had taken the droid, after Gran Shmi had died. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hadn’t argued to keep the droid, not wanting the reminder of Gran Shmi around. He’d been very sorry about it, years ago when the subject had come up.

 Gran Shmi’s droid _had_ been called “Threepio”! How had Luke not _noticed?_

 “I’m very sorry, madam, but I have no memory of you,” C-3PO said. “My last master was a man named Captain Antilles and before that, well, I have a bit of missing memory there, but I’m sure I would remember _ever_ coming to this terribly sandy planet.”

 “He must have had his memory flushed before,” Luke said in realization.

 “Almost certainly, but really, madam, I’m sure I’d remember a place like this!”

 Gran Shmi’s hand stayed over her mouth, and she looked at C-3PO sadly, her eyes bright. Luke looked at C-3PO and felt sad too, realizing all the memories of his family that had been cleaned away. Precious things now lost forever to the past. Gran Shmi was a ghost and her memories troubled her, and now her once-beloved droid was even worse when it came to remembering.

 Threepio, who had kept her company even as her son left her, his last parting gift, didn’t remember her.

 Gran Shmi turned and threw herself into Luke’s open arms. He held her tightly, rubbing up and down her back, pressing a kiss into her hair. Behind her, C-3PO dithered and R2-D2 beeped sadly.

 Luke inwardly swore that when they returned home, he’d ask Uncle Owen about who’d taken Threepio. It seemed so unlikely that someone had taken the droid off Tatooine only for the droid to end up on Tatooine again, in the hands of the Lars-Skywalker family again. Maybe there was some way of retrieving Threepio’s memories for his grandmother.

 Old Ben came back out of his house again, coming to see what was taking everyone. He closed his mouth as he caught sight of Gran Shmi in Luke’s arms. Luke kept glaring at him to make sure he got the message, and old Ben ended up gesturing for the droids to follow him into the house.

 “Come along, Artoo, let’s give them their privacy and get out of this dreadful sand,” C-3PO said quietly, which wasn’t really very quiet at all.

 R2-D2 beeped softly back, still sounding sad.

 “No, I’m sure I would have remembered, Artoo,” C-3PO said as they wandered off. “I have an excellent memory. I know over six million different forms of communication, you know…”

 ~

 It took Gran Shmi a long time before she stopped trembling and looked up.

 “I’m so sorry,” she said, wiping tears away from her eyes.  

 “No, no, don’t be sorry,” Luke said, and squeezed her tightly before smiling down. “What are you always telling me? It’s all right to be sad sometimes. How else are you supposed to let the pain out? I’m so sorry about your droid, Gran Shmi.”

 Gran Shmi smiled back, and patted his cheek, and left her hand there. “It’ll be all right, Luke. These things happen.”

 “We don’t have to get his memories flushed again, if you don’t want. We’ll just not go to Anchorhead at all, and tell Uncle Owen that I did.”

 “That’s very nice, Luke, but Threepio is a very bad liar.”

 Luke laughed. “He might have gotten better!”

 “Luke,” Gran Shmi said. “He might not remember, but he didn’t change that much.”

 “Then we’ll tell Uncle Owen the good news! You know he’ll go along with it if you ask him, and Aunt Beru’ll be on your side if he grumbles first.”

 Uncle Owen was in charge around the farm, except when Gran Shmi decided she was in charge around the farm. Gran Shmi’s words had _weight_ in their family, being a Gran and all, when she decided to use them. Luke’s words, by comparison, were worth about the same as womprat shit. Calling on Gran Shmi was a risk that a young boy had to sometimes be willing to take to get out of trouble.

 Urging Gran Shmi to take something for herself, on the other hand, was also a task that a young boy sometimes had to be willing to undertake. Luke had found, in his wise experience, that people who couldn’t help themselves needed someone to help them, and people who wouldn’t help themselves often just needed nudging. If Gran Shmi wanted her droid back, Luke couldn’t not help her.

 Gran Shmi patted his cheek one last time. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

 The howl of something sounded from far away, like a beast picking up a scent of a hunt.

 “Inside now,” Gran Shmi said.

 And into old Ben Kenobi’s house they went.

 


	4. Old Ben

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been working on this particular chapter for so long. Sorry. It was a tricky one.

 Old Ben’s home was a little bit disappointing, if Luke was being honest. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but looking around revealed that it was more or less like any other poor, isolated Tatooine residence out there. A little nicer in places, a little rougher in others, but normal enough.

 Or so Luke thought, until he caught a buzzing feeling in the air. It was faint, and it came and went, but it was there, and it followed old Ben Kenobi as he settled them all in comfortably. It was almost like laying hands on a ghost, or catching a spirit by the tail, except spread throughout the air of a room.

 Luke tried to place the feeling, as he volunteered to help C-3PO – his Gran’s _Threepio_ – look over his bumps and breaks. Gran Shmi was the better mechanic, but he didn’t want her to get any more upset by old memories. Reconnecting C-3PO’s wires helped put the unknown feeling into perspective anyway, a cleansing contrast to the entire rest of the house, which felt… almost as though every piece of furniture was made of shades. The only thing Luke knew for sure was that it was uncomfortable.

 And that C-3PO wasn’t helping.

 “I don’t think it’s fixable, Master Luke,” the droid was saying sadly. Luke had never heard a droid sound so miserable before, or anyone sound so miserable before. “There’s no sense in fiddling with it. It’s done for. The whole arm will have to go.”

 “Well, how about I give it a shot first?” Luke said wryly. “Then we’ll talk amputation.” He patted the droid sympathetically on the busted arm. “If you ask me, though, I think you’ll be fine.”

 “Oh, do you really think so, Master Luke? You see, I’m very attached to my arms and would very much prefer that they do remain attached to me. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember-”  

 Gran Shmi was sitting next to Luke, between him and old Ben. It was her that finally spoke up, bringing something to the room besides C-3PO’s worries. She had been either looking at Ben or watching him out of the corner of her eye since they’d walked in and been seated.

 “Are you sure that you’ve never owned a droid, Kenobi?”

 Old Ben looked up from where he’d been stroking his beard and staring at the wall in thought. “I think I would remember,” he said again, and looked towards the droid in question with a smile. “Especially one so adventurous and determined.”

 R2-D2 whistled shrilly.

 Gran Shmi stiffened and said, “Watch your language, _please.”_

 R2-D2 seemed to wheel back, and beeped in surprise. Luke, who didn’t know binary, looked between them, fairly certain he’d barely escaped a reflexive urge by Gran Shmi to cover his ears. Old Ben raised his brows at all of them. 

 “Madam!” C-3PO said. “You understand Binary?”

 “Yes,” Gran Shmi said shortly, still looking unhappily towards R2-D2.

 “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend, madam. You see, I was under the impression that I’d been hired as a translator for the-”

 “Uncle Owen wanted one for when G- Aunt Shmi was busy,” Luke explained, and went back to work on C-3PO’s arm, “and to take off some of her workload.” People couldn’t work nearly as quickly as droids could. “There, how does that feel?”

 C-3PO moved his arm experimentally. “Much better, Master Luke! Thank you!”

 “There we go, no need to cut off any limbs,” Luke said, and patted the arm.

 He was glad to have distracted the droid. It was hard to explain that Gran Shmi knew every language she’d come across so far. Luke thought it had something to do with her being dead, though Gran Shmi had known several languages when she had been alive, including Binary and Huttese.

 Luke spoke Basic, and his Huttese was pretty good. He had a slim understanding of a few of the other languages tossed about markets. He’d never been interested in Binary before now, though.

 “It seems strange that our paths haven’t crossed before now, Kenobi,” Gran Shmi said.

 “Let’s say that your stepbrother doesn’t appreciate my presence, or my advice,” old Ben said to her. “I respected his decisions, though what good that’s done, it’s hard to say.” He glanced towards Luke as he said this, and Gran Shmi seemed to lean between them slightly until he looked back to her. “He’s not the only one who’d rather forget the Clone Wars entirely, or that your brother fought in them.”

 Luke couldn’t even pretend to keep working on C-3PO’s injuries and turned away entirely. “My father didn’t fight in the wars,” he said, even though he felt on the edge of his seat at this possible confirmation of everything he’d ever known to be true.

 Old Ben looked at him again. “Oh?”

 “He was a navigator on a spice freighter,” Gran Shmi said.

 “That,” old Ben said to her, “is what your stepbrother would have you believe. Owen holds different ideals; he thought your brother should have stayed here and not gotten involved.” He leaned back in his seat and glanced at Luke. “I was there. Yes, I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father.”

 ~

  _I was once a Jedi Knight, the same as your father._

 This was said with significance, but the best Luke could say was that he’d… probably… heard the term “Jedi Knight” in passing. Something about it definitely sounded familiar, he could have said confidently. What about it was familiar, he didn’t actually know, but it clearly meant something important to old Ben, who had glanced up at them expectantly as he spoke.

 “A what?” Luke said intelligently.

 Old Ben blinked at him, then frowned.

 Luke frowned back – how was he supposed to know everything – and looked towards Gran Shmi for answers instead. It was then his turn to blink, because Gran Shmi looked twice as surprised as the rest of them combined. She looked stunned, before she frowned back at Old Ben, twice as deeply.

 “You took my son,” Shmi Skywalker said suddenly.

 Luke stared at her.

 “And now you’re trying to take my grandson from me,” Gran Shmi accused. She had a growing anger in her face and no uncertainty, as she frowned at old Ben Kenobi.

 “Oh, dear,” C-3PO said worriedly.

 Old Ben blinked again. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry,” Luke interrupted, trying to keep up. “Sorry. _What_ ’s a Jedi Knight?”

 R2-D2 beeped sharply at him, like an accusation.

 Luke frowned at the little droid and demanded, “How am I supposed to know what that is?”

 “The Jedi were famous, Master Luke,” C-3PO said. “But it’s quite understandable that you have never heard of them. Mention of them is strictly forbidden by the Empire, with _very_ severe punishments. Why, just saying the name, I felt quite dangerous there. I would advise you not-”

 Luke turned his frown back on his grandmother and old Ben. “What’s a Jedi?” he demanded.

 Old Ben Kenobi and Shmi Skywalker hadn’t stopped frowning at each other. Gran Shmi seemed to have contained her anger, but her hands were white-knuckled in her lap and her gaze was cold. Old Ben had a suspicious calculating look to him for Gran Shmi that Luke didn’t like one bit.

  _Oh,_ Luke realized. Oh, Gran Shmi had just outed herself as Luke’s grandmother, who was supposed to be dead. The sort of dead as in “not walking about and talking her mind” dead. Normal dead.

 Oh, this wasn’t good.

 “I thought my father was a navigator on a spice freighter,” Luke repeated loudly.

 He hoped to distract old Ben. He could always say that “Aunt” Shmi frequently “confused” herself with her mother. Yet, at the same time, this distraction felt unintentionally accusing. Luke didn’t want to think that Gran Shmi had been keeping something from him, but he especially didn’t want her to start now if she’d suddenly remembered something important about his father.

 Old Ben looked at him. “No, he was a Jedi Knight,” he said. “My partner.”

 “Your partner,” Luke said slowly. “And he fought in the Clone Wars? With you?”

 “Yes, and many others. For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic,” old Ben Kenobi said. “Before the dark times… before the Empire. Now…” Old Ben looked away, off towards nothing. “…they are all but extinct.”

 That was… very sad. Old Ben looked and felt terribly, terribly sad.

 Luke now remembered hearing about the Jedi before. Vaguely and only in passing. Peacekeeping monks or something. It sounded exactly like the sort of conversation that Uncle Owen would have shut down if it had ever come up before. Luke couldn’t remember it coming up before, but he could imagine Uncle Owen’s gruff voice dismissing the subject in very clear detail. 

 Well, Uncle Owen wasn’t _here_ to stop Luke from getting answers now. Luke was probably going to be in enormous trouble later no matter what he did, so he might as well make the trouble worth it.  

 “Your father was one of the greatest of them,” old Ben continued, as Luke leaned in to listen keenly. “He was the best star pilot in the galaxy – much like yourself, I hear – as well as a cunning warrior… and a good friend.”

 Luke was as fascinated as he was uncomfortable. He thought he could breathe in old Ben Kenobi’s sadness and choke on it, but to learn that his father had been a heroic figure felt strangely right and true, and yet one look beside him and Gran Shmi’s face was tight and grim. If she’d been a normal person, Luke might have said that she looked like she’d seen a ghost.

 “Why wouldn’t Uncle Owen tell me this?” Luke said accusingly to old Ben.

 “Afraid you’d run off after Obi-Wan Kenobi on some damned, foolish, idealistic crusade, like your father, perhaps,” old Ben suggested, before he looked again at Shmi. “A not unreasonable fear. Forgive me, but I was under the impression that Anakin’s mother had passed away thirty years ago.”

 “Were you?” Gran Shmi said.

 “I was there when he mourned her,” old Ben said evenly. “You’ve aged very well, madam.”

 Luke shook his head and intervened. “This is my aunt,” he said quickly. He laid a hand on Shmi’s arm and squeezed, hopefully to remind her of the ruse. “She’s also named Shmi and she’s had a hard life. She gets confused sometimes. Thinks she’s her mother. Sorry, Ben, but-” 

 Gran Shmi laid her other hand over Luke’s. “There’s no point, Luke,” she said.

 Luke could have choked on his own heart in that moment. “Wha-”

 “He can tell that something’s not quite right.” She kept on staring at old Ben Kenobi. “Can’t you?”

 “I was glad to learn that Luke had living family that cared for him deeply, though I was surprised to learn that Shmi Skywalker had had another child,” old Ben answered. “The ages didn’t match up.” He rubbed at his chin and said conversationally. “I almost thought my suspicions were my own jealousy for some time, when I spent over a decade watching you fail to age like the rest of us.”

 “Mmhmm,” said Gran Shmi, disinterestedly.

  _“Watching_ us?” Luke repeated.

 “Watching over you, young Luke,” old Ben answered easily. He pulled himself to his feet and crossed the room, towards an old chest, where he pulled out some strange device, it looked like a short metal tube with grip and adjusting buttons, and offered to it Luke.

 Luke looked at Gran Shmi, who was frowning, for direction. She didn’t _look_ upset or fragile or lost. She looked as steady as a rock, and she nodded.

 Luke took the strange tube and looked it over curiously. It felt… strange… with the same sort of shade-like buzz as old Ben’s home. It had a hole at one end. Luke almost looked down it before Gran Shmi reached over and firmly stopped him from doing that and made him point it away from his own face. Luke sighed and shook her gently off – he hadn’t been about to turn it _on,_ he wasn’t a _kid_ anymore – while old Ben wandered back over to his seat and carefully dropped down.

 “That’s your father’s old lightsaber. He would have wanted you to have it, now that you’re older,” old Ben informed him. “It’s a far more elegant weapon from a more civilized time.”

 Luke had found what he thought was the activating switch, but instead he looked up at Ben.

 “What do you think you know about Aunt Shmi?” he demanded.

 “I know now that there is no Aunt Shmi,” old Ben answered. “Yet I also know that your grandmother died thirty years ago. I am very curious to learn how a dead woman came to be sitting in my house, appearing to many senses to be as alive as you or I am.”

 Luke looked at Gran Shmi, but his grandmother wasn’t answering. She looked at him and waited patiently, like... like she was leaving this up to him. If was had been going to stop him from asking questions or telling old Ben things, she would’ve. What _had_ she remembered, exactly?  

 So, Luke looked back at old Ben and said, “You said my father was a good friend of yours.”

 Ben inclined his head gently.

 “Did you ever… notice anything… _strange_ about him? Anything unusual?”

 Ben’s genial expression turned disbelieving for a moment. Luke couldn’t tell whether it was because old Ben genuinely didn’t know what Luke was talking about or because old Ben was having the realization of a lifetime. Luke didn’t really know much of anything about the old man.

 “Your father was an extraordinary Jedi,” old Ben said finally.

 Luke didn’t know what that meant exactly, so he fiddled with the lightsaber in his hands. He was too excited and nervous to get his words straight. Gran Shmi reached over and stopped him from twirling the saber, like she would when he did the same with her tools sometimes, and Luke obediently stopped and sat up a little straighter.

 “Uh, I mean, did my father ever seem to have… strange… abilities?”

 Old Ben raised his eyebrows. “He was a young man extraordinarily gifted in the Force.”

 “The Force?” Luke repeated, lost.

 Old Ben’s eyebrows somehow got even higher. “The Force is what gives a Jedi their power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

 “Oh,” Luke says. “That.”

 “That?” old Ben repeated, his eyebrows having reached the highest point they could.

 Luke pretty sure he knew what old Ben Kenobi was talking about. Gran Shmi had expressed the idea that everything was connected before, that there was an energy given off by all things and that their family had a greater sense for this energy. Gran Shmi hadn’t called it “the Force”, though.

 Luke was excited to learn these things about his father and to have found someone supposedly like him, with a connection to this “energy”, but he didn’t understand how old Ben could not talk about powers and yet not understand Gran Shmi. Did old Ben have the Force? Could old Ben see ghosts and spirits? Maybe old Ben Kenobi didn’t understand how Gran Shmi could be dead and seem alive. Maybe that was unique to Luke’s abilities with this “energy field created by all living things”.

 “So, you can see them too?” Luke asked excitedly.

 He hadn’t ever kept company with old Ben long enough to notice for sure whether or not the man could see ghosts. Luke couldn’t remember anything that proven the man _couldn’t_ see them.

 “I am afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Luke.”

 R2-D2 whistled in agreement and the both of them were just making Luke even more confused. Luke opened his mouth to try and figure out what old Ben was talking about, then, but Gran Shmi spoke up again. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap again and she was still pale.

 “He doesn’t know, Luke,” Gran Shmi said. “He can’t see them.”

 “Them?” old Ben repeated.

 “Ghosts and spirits,” Luke explained carefully. What sort of powers did he mean, then? If he wasn’t taking about ghosts and spirits? “I can see ghosts and spirits. My grandmother had the same gift, when she was still alive. My father had it too. Do you?”

 Old Ben stared before he finally said, “I’m afraid not.”

 “I’ve been able to see Gran Shmi for as long as I can remember,” Luke explained further, gaining confidence as Gran Shmi reached over and squeezed his knee, though he only felt increasingly confused. “And… I wanted Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru to see her too… and they did. She’s just as much a part of the family as the rest of us.” He looked towards old Ben sceptically. “My father never told you? That Skywalkers could see ghosts and spirits?”

  _They couldn’t have been too good of friends, then_ , Luke thought, feeling upset over having gotten excited over old Ben not being able to see ghosts after all. Though, Luke had to admit that he’d never told any of his friends about ghosts and spirits either. Luke’s family had always been adamant that the Skywalker family gift remain a family secret.  

 “No,” old Ben said quietly. “Your father never told me this.”

 “Ani could see them all his life,” Gran Shmi said and old Ben looked at her. “I told him to keep his abilities secret and safe. My Ani was just a boy. He could have fallen in with the wrong people, and been used badly, if word got out that he had an extraordinary gift.”

 Old Ben’s gaze dropped to the floor and he lowered his head. “I see, that… that was very wise.”

 Luke had a feeling that he’d missed something important. “So… my father was taken away to become a Jedi,” he said slowly. He looked at Gran Shmi beseechingly. “You said he won a pod race and was freed and became an apprentice? Was that true… or…?”

 Gran Shmi softened as she patted his knee. “It’s true, Luke.”

 “You remember now?”

 “Not… everything, but… yes. Your father left to become a Jedi, just as he’d dreamed.”

 “Oh,” Luke said, and looked at old Ben. “And… _you_ took him?”

 No wonder Uncle Owen didn’t like old Ben.

 “No,” old Ben said, then cleared his throat. “It was my old master-”

 “Master?” Luke said, alarmed.

  _“Language,”_ Gran Shmi said, as R2-D2 whistled and beeped his own response to Luke’s yelp.

 “No, not like that,” old Ben assured him quickly. “No, he was my… _mentor_ is a better word. Those who had mastered the Force were also known as Jedi Masters, and were known as guides and teachers to those around them, such as their Padawan learners and younger Knights.”

 “Oh,” Luke said again.

 “My old mas- _mentor_ was the one to find your father and bring him into the Jedi Order.”

 “He couldn’t see ghosts and spirits either,” Gran Shmi said.

 Old Ben gave her a very funny, very incredulous look at that. Gran Shmi just looked back at him. She still didn’t look confused or unsure at all, though she was still a little pale.

 “So… it’s just us?” Luke asked.

 “I don’t know, Luke,” Gran Shmi answered. “Tatooine never saw many Jedi ‘round these parts.”

 She looked at old Ben while she said this, and she sounded very like Uncle Owen as she did. The Imperials had never had much interest in keeping the law on Tatooine and, from all the embittered stories he’d heard from long-time residents, the Old Republic had been about the same. It was a bit strange to hear Gran Shmi be bitter about it, because for all that she was a dead woman, except when it came to the subject of slavers, she wasn’t at all a bitter person.

 “I have never heard of a gift like this before in the Jedi Order,” old Ben offered. “Though the history of the Jedi is long and has always been largely lost, so perhaps there have been other lines with similar gifts, hiding it like your father did.”

 Luke still didn’t understand what powers or gifts Ben was talking about, if he didn’t mean ghosts and spirits. Luke nodded, though, jittering with foiled excitement, because that made sense. It was frustrating, to keep coming up on pockets of lost history, but he’d been suffering through it all his life. He was well-used to it by now.  

 “How did my father die?” Luke demanded of old Ben.

 Luke had to ask. If there was even the smallest chance of finally having the truth, then Luke had to ask. Even if the question and the answer further upset Gran Shmi, who had apparently remembered something and wasn't telling, Luke still had ask. If old Ben knew one truth about Anakin Skywalker, then maybe he knew more. 

 If old Ben knew how Anakin Skywalker had died - the where and the why - then maybe Luke could find Anakin Skywalker's ghost. Luke had always suspected that his father was still out there in the galaxy, lingering on some far-off planet like Gran Shmi's ghost had lingered around the farm. Anakin Skywalker would probably be a pretty powerful ghost, too, if he'd been gifted with the same abilities as Gran Shmi before him and Luke after him. Perhaps this was more of a hope than a suspicion, but Luke wouldn't be dissuaded from trying anyway. He couldn't let his father linger, lost, when Luke could go out and put him to rest. 

Or better yet: Luke could find his father’s ghost and finally bring him home. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May the Fourth, everyone. 
> 
> Everyone here is very confused.


End file.
